Has it really been ten years already? In some ways it seems like yesterday, and in other ways it seem much longer ago that I graduated from high school. Either way it still haunts me. You probably don’t understand; you probably enjoyed public education. Good for you. Why don’t you go put on your Letterman sweater and shut the heck up? Sorry, I’m a little bitter. And here’s why…
Cobb Elementary School
I was never very special. Not in the positive sense at any rate. From kindergarten through the fifth grade I was painfully shy and had really messed up front teeth, and a blinking eye tic. My mom clearly cut my bangs (as you can observe in exhibit A), dressed me in Victorian era inspired jump suits and I couldn’t read analogue clocks. Nobody in my neighborhood liked me. Nobody at church liked me. Few kids at school acknowledged my existence. I recall being excluded from girl circles, getting into slap-bracelet feuds, and being sent to the Principal’s office for hitting my friend in the face with a tether ball. You can only imagine how excited I was for the clean slate middle school offered.
Middletown Middle School
Well, not exactly a clean slate. Middletown Middle school combined three elementary schools which meant my class went from thirty-five kids to about ninety kids, so there was still that thirty-percent who remembered the unfortunate tether-ball incident. Still, I had had braces, I was sporting sweet new glasses, and although I still couldn’t read analogue clocks I was determined to turn my antisocial life around.
Riding the school bus changed my life. It arrived each morning at 7:30 at a cigarette-strewn shanty about half a mile from my house. It was always packed to full capacity with the motliest collection of foul-mouthed high school and middle school students Cobb Mountain had to offer. And since my stop was second to last I had to sit wherever I could. And generally the only open seats were those in the very back with the pirates; a dangerous place for an eleven year old girl in stirrup pants. I witnessed a lot of things back there. Learned many delightful new words and phrases. Saw a kid light his leg hairs on fire. It was a long bus ride with many a sharp corner. Fortunately for me weed + stoners = exceptionally accommodating seatmates and so I was befriended, my life experience expanded, and all the second-hand marijuana smoke probably helped me relax a little.
Of course Middle school wasn’t all uncomfortable bus rides. There were plenty of other things contributing to one’s discomfort. Like having to change for gym, when all I owned were granny panties. Or when a kid from my core class told me he was going to punch me in my “four inch forehead”. Or my seventh grade yearbook photo where I look exactly like the deaf, cross-eyed boy pictured above me. I was a nerd from my golden perv glasses all the way to my K-Mart tennis shoes. But the elevation from being rejected to mostly ignored was welcome. I did have a small group of equally nerdy friends, and being one of the eight kids chosen to go on a school-sponsored trip to Japan filled me with a small but happy confidence.
As far as public education is concerned, I peaked in the eighth grade. The summer after I went to Japan I got contacts, a more age-appropriate wardrobe, and started wearing mascara. I bought my first cassette tapes: Ace of Base, and Green Day. By some mistake I was put in the smart class with the smart kids and was able to make more nerdy friends than ever before. That year I was voted “prettiest eyes” in the yearbook. I had arrived. Little did I know it was all downhill from there.
To Be Continued…
LOL! I thought you were the coolest person EVER and I wanted some perv glasses and a blinking tic and a 4-inch forehead just like you.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I vote this as your funniest post ever 🙂
Reality is always funnier than fiction.
DUDE! You were one messed-up kid. I knew it (probably contributed to it a little bit… or a lot. Sorry), but didn’t realize just HOW much until now…
… now that the Cobb populace is no longer the standard by which you are judged.
To be rejected on Cobb Mountain is quite the feet, lil’ sista’.
I probably shouldn’t read this at work… people think I’m… different…because randomly I bust up laughing in my little cubie. Thanks! I love your stories!
I’ve got to scan some great pics of you that I think you’d enjoy so very much. Can I just say “Stewart”!
BTW Di – Funny thing, I looked like a deaf kid in ALL my school pics.
Tiffanie – I, for one, would very much like to see the Stewart pictures 🙂
You totally deserved to be voted “prettiest eyes”! You do have very pretty eyes. It’s such a shame that you had them half closed in your floating head picture. And to be hiding them behind gold perv glasses was really a travesty.
These pictures are so 80’s fabulous! I love it! And just so you know, I’m pretty sure that if I’d grown up on Cobb Mountain, we would have been friends. I have a four-square incident in my past that I’ve been running from for decades now.
How in the world did you turn out to be so gorgeous and your kids so normal? I would have had my doubts had I known you during the “Kip picture” era. That was a hilarious photo!!! I think you are mid-tic in the profile pic.
Glad you turned out so well!
Your keeping me in suspense..I can’t wait to hear how it goes downhill from there.
you sure do know how to keep a person in suspense. if you have ever heard the miley cyrus song “the climb” you should know its the climb up that matters and to never worry about the dixie chicks “landslide” lol, smiles!
you have me laughing because geoff just told me this morning (after looking at a photo of me in 5th grade )that i was “very pretty little girl” and explained to hari that i decided hide during the rest of my school years (including college) from all boys, lol, he’s right. i too don’t like to remember high school.
Ahhh Diana…no one can make me smirk and giggle like you can. Your stories make me very grateful we live close enough for our kids to walk to school – bus rides sound much to ‘enlightening’ for this feeble-hearted parent to handle.
I think it is a bit unkind of you to leave us all hanging this way though..post soon…please…
P.S. my word verification today? falgaffe
WHAT!!!??? You were one of the prettiest, smartest, most amazing girls in the entire school system!!! And you dressed very stylishly. You wouldn’t wear clothing you didn’t like, remember?
I was angry with those stink’in little bratty girls who lived on our street AND the ones at Church too.
But I was so proud of the way you handled yourself on the school bus. I couldn’t wait for you to get home and tell me the tales of horror you observed and coped so well with.
You got an education in many and various things there in Cobb and Middletown. Look, just look at how wonderfully you turned out!!
I don’t know why this music is making me feel so bad. Do you like it? I thought I liked it but it is making me feel really uncomfortable.
So sorry, honey. Your childhood was traumatic. But you have some amazingly clever and funny stories to relate now! I loved you then and I love you now. Like Angie, I thought you were the coolest!!
Oh, Mom…
For a second I thought Mom said she liked me in her last sentence. Then I read what it really said. That’s more like it.
…and part deux? We’re all waiting with rapt attention!
LOL!!! Angie, you’re too funny 🙂
i don’t know if you’ll even know that I’m commenting here! never the less i’m doing it. i just want you to know that no matter how painful Cobb was for you. you were my best friend and we were social misfits together. though at the time i had no idea that i was coming to school everyday smelling of marijuana maybe it helped you not be so traumatized on the long bus rides. you were defiantly a friend laugh with, dance, with sing with and be a girl with. i love ya di!
and i’m kinda sad i moved be for the Japan trips that would have been a blast. it’s probably a good thing though living in middletown was not the best place to keep up a clean moral and high standards that i had hid deep down inside of me. lol